4 NOVEMBER 1989, page 29

A Biography Of The United States

Francis King HOLLYWOOD by Gore Vidal Deutsch, £12.95, pp.543 V ery few people now ever read Upton Sinclair in this country, and in his native America he is scarcely more in......

Plenty Of Plums In The Pudding

Anthony Howard BRITAIN IN THE EIGHTIES: THE SPECTATOR'S VIEW OF THE THATCHER DECADE edited by Philip Marsden-Smedley Grafton, £16.95, pp.381 T he trouble with anthologies of......

In Need Of Considerable Gilding

Anita Brookner THE FLY IN THE OINTMENT by Alice Thomas Ellis Duckworth, £10.95, pp. 132 T h . e fly in this particular ointment is Lili, riotous incubus who saves and destroys,......